Lawaster Alm

Directly from the Innerst car park, the road is initially asphalted but soon turns to gravel and winds its way up quite steeply. When you start to worry about the choice of route (because it might be too steep after all), the road flattens out and instead of unbalanced panting, you hear chattering between people in the group. And it stays that way.

Guided throughout by blue-yellow-red (moderately difficult) mountain bike signs, you master the countless forest road junctions completely stress-free.

However, we leave our first destination, the Nonsalm, up on the right. Although it is beautifully nestled at the foot of the Gilfert, 2 arguments spoke against a visit:

1) It's not serviced and 2) the black clouds towering behind the nearby Rastkogel! "We could miss that quarter of an hour in the afternoon!"

At the turn-off towards Lawaster Alm, we found another absurdity, which seems to be a custom here in the Weerberg - Kolsassberg area: ELECTRIC WIDELINES DISTANCED ON THE ROAD!!! And poorly labelled to boot! SO WATCH OUT ON THE DESCENT!

Slightly uphill, slightly flat, slightly downhill, the path leads us behind the Gilfert to the Lawaster (or Lafaster, as shown on maps) Alm. We don't want to miss out on the nearby "Oberleger", even though this 150 metre climb is quite a challenge. In any case, even the most persistent rattlers have now fallen silent. Next to the stable building, the Alm-Öhi has realised his dream of a hunting lodge, as he proudly explains to us later. We took advantage of the fountain and the marvellous square to take a short break.

Thanks to modern media, a glance at the rain radar almost startled me a little and drove me to hurry. It was already raining quite heavily in the Navistal and we were only 1 mountain ridge away from it.

The excellent forest road (-trail would be too short) brings us back down quickly and safely. During the last 200 metre ascent, a distant thunderstorm over Innsbruck drove the group to peak performance, a second one behind us at the Kellerjoch was already stinging a little in the psyche and so I, as "guide", had my hands full trying to keep the small herd together. (Again with the help of modern technology - I sent a motorised cowgirl to the front to encourage the fleeing ones to wait). So we managed the 200 metre ascent more or less at a gallop.

Reassured that not much more could happen, we enjoyed the last descent. And slipped into the nearby car in good time. We didn't need the quarter of an hour we had saved at the Nonsalm after all.